What Do I Want?

Photo by Vadim Bogulov on Unsplash

Is it something I can share, or is it more esoteric?

Will I write about it or spend a page or more avoiding talking about “what do I want?” Sometimes I need to warm up my brain before I can open up about what I actually decided to write about. Ok, it’s most of the time. I almost always seem to ramble on about something, pulling out details in an attempt to avoid sharing what I really wanted to think about.

What I want is a very simple question.

Yet my answer seems to be alluding to me. I cannot seem to focus on this question. Maybe it is because I do not know what I want. Or even more likely, I am afraid that what I want and need is beyond what I can think about right now. Yet, I have not asked myself about it, and I am sure that the answer is way more complex than I think it should be.

I lost my mother at the end of March, and my wife just lost her dad a few weeks ago.

So, I am factoring that in. It just doesn’t seem to be an enjoyable time to talk about me and what would help me. In my therapy sessions, I am feeling more and more that I am good and that I even love myself. Yet, I am not living this. There is no embracing of the feeling of love or that I am special. I wish that I could turn this on and leave it at full volume.

I know it is within me to love myself.

But the nuts and bolts of how to do it keep alluding me. I have moments where I think this is possible, yet most of the time, loving myself is just a work in progress. So here I am, attempting to be what I want to be, without knowing how to be what I can be. This is all so confusing for me. Worse, I know that answering the question, what do I want, is so much easier than I am making it.

As my therapist pointed out, I already know many things that I do NOT want.

This is just as important as identifying those things that I do want. For instance, I do not want to continue being untrue to myself. I am able to see that this is the same as doing something over and over, while expecting a different result. That was, on the morning I went to the hospital, what was behind door #2. I did not choose that door.

That morning, I chose door #3, where I sought professional help.

That has started me on the path of figuring out myself and what is important to me. As I get more involved in my thoughts, I have additional insights into myself. And as important, I have insights into my relationship with depression. At times, I see what depression is wanting me to think. But this is still on-going. And my blog, of nearly 5 ½ years, is closing in on 650 blog posts.

Each of these has been an attempt on my part to see behind the curtain.

I want to know what is happening when my depression wants things done a certain way. And I want to know strategies to keep it from getting the upper hand. I do not time travel very much these days. Now that I understand coulda, woulda, shoulda, I very seldom should all over myself. There are times when I catch myself beginning to exhibit one or more tricks that my depression lays in my path.

Now I understand things such as “all or nothing thinking.”

I see the setup, and I see where my depression is going. All ten unhelpful thinking styles are my depression tools of the trade. By better understanding all of these, I can see where depression wants me to go, and why. Before I was given this tool, I had no idea what was happening when one of these thoughts would pop into my head.

Now I think, “Not so fast, depression!”

It amazes me that for decades, I failed to understand what my depression was up to. It would wind my clock, and pull my chain. There were so many things that I did that my depression thought was a promising idea. Now I know a lot about these 10 thinking styles. I can see that by understanding these styles, I am better equipped to acknowledge them without engaging them.

Kind of like years ago, watching my suicidal thoughts be on a leaf, floating downstream and around the bend in the river.

By not engaging with these thoughts. I can avoid extracting all of the energy they have as I let them drift downstream. Although I am not 100% effective, my ability to see what my depression is doing continues to improve. And I find that even if I do not catch an action as it occurs, I almost always catch it very soon thereafter.

Once again, I have written 2 pages without addressing what I wanted to write about.

That seems like the new normal for me. I write down a topic to think about, and then avoid the topic. Many times, after some meandering, I do come back and write about what I was originally thinking. But this time, I cannot seem to find my way back.

I will need to revisit “what do I want,” but for right now, I don’t know what that is.